The City of Cold Lake has gotten a helping hand from the province when it comes to storing their buses. The Alberta government announced on Thursday that Cold Lake will receive about $680,000 to help with building a garage for the city buses. Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland says the new garage is expected to fit in with a planned public works building.
“We had put in a grant for a transit storage unit that was approved by the government and now we have some money to go to the public works complex. It’s pretty exciting.”
City buses are currently housed under contract with Southland Transportation at their facility in the north of the city. Copeland says a new garage will allow the city to have 100 percent care of the fleet.
“The people under contract do a great job taking care of the buses but we want to have a dedicated garage that the drivers can put the buses in.”
Copeland says keeping the buses warm in the winter should help keep the new fleet from wearing down faster. $215 million in total were handed out in grants in what the province is calling the “Alberta Community Transit Fund”. A date for shovels going into the ground has not been set.